Warwick Haycock, Accounting Software Specialist at The Access Group
As providers of leading financial management software, The Access Group recently conducted a survey of 1,000 finance professionals in UK businesses, including CFOs, finance directors and managers, to understand their pain points for the year ahead and what technology they are considering to resolve their challenges.
64 per cent of respondents have an expectation that their business will adopt new technologies this year, with 24 per cent suggesting cloud accounting software was likely to be the technology they invest in.
Cloud-based accounting software is moving the financial data of your business from traditional on-premise systems to SaaS (Software as a Service) based accounting software. There is no requirements of software in-house as businesses can access and use it remotely via cloud applications.
Below are four reasons why cloud-based accounting software is at the forefront of their minds for almost one in four finance teams:
- Real-time, accurate data
The pandemic has taught us a few things, but especially how quick the world of business can change.
It’s crucial now more than ever, that any data and insights from the finance team are as up-to-date as possible, leaders will call upon their finance colleagues to pull together and present on business performance.
Gathering data from multiple and disparate systems are time consuming for any finance lead not to mention the risk of manual errors in the data.
Cloud-based solutions hold all your data in one place and offer a real-time view so that up-to-date reports can be compiled within minutes.
Accuracy is a key world in finance – taking the wrong data could result in the business taking the wrong strategy, overseeing the right decision.
- Quality control
Mistakes can be made in any department including the finance team, factors such as heavy workloads, inefficient processes and the introduction of remote working, its understandable errors happen.
With many of us now working in a hybrid model, we are working on shared documents in the cloud. Data can be reviewed and amended immediately as everyone has sight of the updates. In an effort to prevent errors, strengthen the approvals process and audit trail, a cloud-based platform standardises formats for submitting data.
- Easing workloads
Speaking of workloads, 24 per cent of survey respondents said that an ever-increasing workload would be a challenge over the year, unsurprisingly because the role of the finance team has changed dramatically in the last 12-months and the impact of furloughed staff, team redundancies and increased sick leave.
For Chief Finance Officers, Finance Directors or Finance Managers, if the to do list is never ending and it matched with outdated processes it only makes matters worse.
Automation is the key to streamlining workloads. Whether helping to ease the time it takes to collate invoices or prepare financial statements, cloud-based accounting software can remove the pain of time-consuming tasks.
- Collaboration
In the office, on the road or working from home, communication and collaboration is key for any team to succeed.
Possibly, the most important advantage of cloud-based accounting software is having access to the data anytime. It will make teams work faster and smarter to have the insights at their fingertips.
A centralised platform allows teams in all divisions to collaborate, even from home. Specifically, for finance teams, they will have access to a company-wide overview, enabling them to see where the business may be overspending or lacking in productivity, all on one centralised platform.
It’s important that finance teams have the technology available to be agile, to deliver insights at critical times when decisions need to be made and to balance both those business-critical tasks with day-to-day jobs that keep the finance department – and business ticking.
Cloud-based accounting software can have many more befits such as automated backup, no on-premise software costs, data security and integration to other systems. Finance and accounting software can accelerate day to day accounting operations and allows finance leads to focus on core tasks.
For more information on our survey results, read The Access Group report in full ‘Financial Healthcheck: Alleviating Your Pain Points in 2021’.
